Berlin’s Governing Mayor, Kai Wegner, sees the Constitutional Protection Office’s assessment of the AfD as a potential basis for a party ban. “If the security authorities come to the conclusion that the AfD is a securely right-wing extremist party, I will be the first to support a procedure” Wegner told the Handelsblatt.
The latest assessment by the Constitutional Protection Office must still be confirmed by the courts. At the same time, it is important that the Federal Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt, quickly evaluates the office’s report. “If it is clear that the AfD is a securely anti-constitutional and right-wing extremist party, then a ban procedure must be examined” Wegner said.
The CDU politician also expressed skepticism about the chances of success of an AfD ban procedure before the Federal Constitutional Court. “This party will always get more radical – not just in the personnel, but also in the language. But a party ban is not easy in Germany – for good reasons” Wegner said. “We need secure findings from the Constitutional Protection Office.”
In contrast, Hubert Kleinert, a former Bundestag member of the Green Party, has taken a clear position against an AfD ban in an op-ed for the Tagesspiegel. The “furore” surrounding the demand for an AfD ban raises questions, Kleinert writes. The Constitutional Protection Office’s report is not enough and the procedure would be politically counterproductive.
“Prominent politicians” would not even publish the report of a subordinate authority as if it had already established the anti-constitutional character of the AfD in a kind of preliminary hearing, Kleinert writes. This is “highly unsettling” and it is noticeable that it is precisely the former critics of the Constitutional Protection Office on the left side of the political spectrum who have developed a special trust in the objectivity of this authority.
The report does not provide much new information, despite its length. The collection of quotes shows ugly discrimination and clearly racist statements alongside statements that do not exceed the limits of what is acceptable in the political debate.
Furthermore, it is not anti-constitutional to advocate for more restrictive naturalization regulations. There is no evidence in the party’s programs and resolutions that the AfD wants to treat German citizens with a migration background differently from those without a migration background, Kleinert writes.
The Constitutional Court would have to weigh individual statements by AfD leaders higher than the official party program. This would be difficult, Kleinert concludes.
The report creates the impression that ethnic criteria have nothing to do with belonging to the German state people, in order to accuse the AfD of an “ethnically defined concept of the people”. This is false.
German citizenship law had until 2000 only the “ius sanguinis”, literally the “right of the blood”, as the norm. Without an ethnic definition of the people, there would have been no late settlers, Kleinert writes.
Politically, he considers a ban application to be “absolutely counterproductive”. In his view, it would dramatically increase the delegitimization of democratic institutions and rules in the East and the representation gap that the AfD has filled would grow even larger. Many in the West would also see the attempt to administratively eliminate an unwanted political competitor and the number of those who see a threat to freedom of opinion would increase even more.